COLOMBO:
A mob in Sri Lanka's northern Jaffna peninsula abducted and killed a senior police officer on Thursday evening as he was attempting to defuse the situation in a tense suburb after a civilian was shot dead.

Superintendent of Police Charles Wijewardene (51) was waylaid near Innuvil in the Jaffna Peninsula, in what is described as a possible "new rebel tactic" of retaliation at the ground level.

A few hours before the SP was abducted and killed, a soldier who was standing outside a saloon shot a barber dead in "accidental gunfire." The death of the barber, J. Shantharooban sparked skirmishes between security forces and protesters.

No gunshot marks

Wijewardene had rushed to the spot to defuse the situation when he was "waylaid" and "abducted" in a vehicle. He was later found dead in an isolated spot. The body was found stripped of the uniform and was clad in a sarong. He had cut injuries but no gunshot marks, a northern source said.

While there is nothing to immediately point to the direct involvement of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the killing, it is seen as bearing the marks of a new rebel tactic. According to a defence observer, the killing is aimed at sending two messages.

First, that there will be retaliation for any killing and second, that the retaliation takes a new form of a "mob incident" rather than a direct LTTE involvement. "All it takes is a couple of cadres in the scene of skirmish to whip up emotions," the observer said.

Shantharooban, defence sources said, was killed when he was attending to a soldier in the saloon, while another stood guard outside. Three soldiers had visited the saloon.

The slain SP is the senior-most police officer to be killed since Colombo and the LTTE signed a ceasefire agreement in February 2002.

Unidentified persons lobbed a hand grenade into an office of the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) in Colombo late on Thursday. An EPDP spokesperson said: "The grenade was lobbed into our premises from outside. A makeshift structure was damaged, but none injured."